Tuberculosis patient faces surgery to remove lung tissue...

June 15, 2007

Tuberculosis patient faces surgery to remove lung tissue DENVER (AP) -- An Atlanta attorney will have surgery next month to remove lung tissue infected with extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, hospital officials said Thursday. Andrew Speaker will have surgery at the University of Colorado Hospital in suburban Aurora, but the date has not been set. Speaker is "an excellent candidate for surgery," said Dr. Charles Daley, head of infectious diseases at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, where Speaker is being treated. "The infected area of his lung is relatively small and well contained. He is also young and otherwise healthy," Daley said. The infected area is about the size of a tennis ball, hospital officials said. Hilton moved to all-women's jail after week in medical ward LOS ANGELES (AP) -- With her medical condition now stabilized, Paris Hilton has been transferred back to an all-women's jail after nearly a week in a medical ward, a sheriff's official said Thursday. Hilton was brought late Wednesday to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood and placed in the medical clinic there. If all goes well, she will return to the jail's special needs unit and be released June 25, spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "Her condition is stable" but she will continue to be monitored, Whitmore said. The 26-year-old socialite and reality TV star began her 45-day sentence June 3 at Lynwood, where she was confined to a solitary cell in the special needs unit away from the other 2,200 inmates. After three days, Sheriff Lee Baca sent Hilton home for an unspecified medical condition that he later said was psychological. Baca has said he made his decision after learning from one of her doctors that she was not taking a certain medication while in custody, and that her "inexplicable deterioration" puzzled county psychiatrists. Defense secretary says U.S. will pursue missile defense plan BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The U.S. will proceed with its plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe whether or not any agreement is reached on an alternative Russian proposal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. Gates dismissed any thoughts that Russia's push for joint use of a radar station in Azerbaijan could replace the U.S. plan for radar and interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. And he expressed doubts that there could be any agreement with the Russians by next month, when President Bush is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I was very explicit in the (NATO) meeting that we saw the Azeri radar as an additional capability, that we intended to proceed with the X-Band radar in the Czech Republic," Gates said during a news briefing.